Speech Therapy Aided Through Use of Palatometer

The movement of the tongue plays a big part in the articulation of words and basic sounds. It can be difficult for speech therapists to tell how a deaf or speech-impaired person is moving their tongue without the aide of newer technology. The palatometer is a device, sort of like a retainer, that records the movement of your tongue.

The palatometer comes equipped with 118 pressure sensors to capture the subject’s tongue movement. This data can be used in multiple ways. In one of the ways, the movement data that is captured is processed by a computer that is able to determine with over 94% accuracy what word the user is trying to say and outputs a voice. One pressing issue with this technology is the time it takes to calculate the correct word. Although the process is completed in a fraction of a second, the delay between the subject’s mouth moving and the audience hearing the voice is enough to give the appearance of watching an out of sync video on YouTube.

The more practical use of this technology is in studying the movement of the subject’s tongue using specialized computer software that shows two simulated mouths. One mouth is the mouth of the subject and the other is the mouth of a speech therapist pronouncing words, phrases, and sounds. The software gives instantaneous visual feedback from the mouths of the individuals so that the subject can try and imitate the movements of the speaker. You can read more Here

You can see how well this technology has worked in a specific case by watching the following video: